


The Beginning, the End

by okjetaime



Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Or Sequel... It's Up To You, POV First Person, POV Protagonist, Prequel to Tenet (2020), spoilers obviously, you know which one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26267086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okjetaime/pseuds/okjetaime
Summary: for the story of our lives, the prologue has a double duty as the epilogue, and vice versa.even so, how come it’s you that saves me every single damn time?
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 70





	The Beginning, the End

Years,

Years of working backwards, accomplishing the plan to stop the nonexistent world war bit by bit. Years of being inverted and alone, of taking apart TENET in order to establish it, of becoming the predecessor of my own past, of operating according to the predetermined result.

Years of nobody but myself, with my righteousness and my stupid pride of playing the protagonist in the one-man story without any audience. Years of living in shadows. Years of slowly going mad and years of slippery attempts at holding onto my sanity and sense of time.

Years of nothing but the mission.

And then you.

All these years, I have known that once I bring us back together, I will bring with me your death.

That decision to recruit you would serve as a trigger of the inevitable string of events leading to your lifeless body with a fractured skull lying in front of me at the epicenter of the could-have-been-the-end-of-the-world. I will have watched you, not knowing that the blood splattered from the head that takes the bullet for me belongs to the love of my life, shed _exactly because of_ _me_.

Through all these years of not seeking you out, not even from afar, I told myself it was because you were not ready, that your help wasn’t need yet, and that I was fine on my own. Beneath the lie, we both knew it was I who was not ready to face the fact that for the story of our lives, the prologue has a double duty as the epilogue, and vice versa.

To start writing the story at all is to already end it.

Rationally, everything screams that the bigger picture, protecting the world, following fate, maintaining reality, whatever you want to call this mission, _that_ is more important than the two of us. Generations from now, when the algorhithm is invented and the descendants pray for somebody in the past to save them, we would only be an equivalent of a lamb, slayed and served as an offering to whoever controlling the narrative, in exchange for another chance at redemption.

That’s what we are. Two lost souls finding and losing one another against the current of time, going alternatingly forward and backward until neither of us care which way matters more. Playing our parts as the cog of the universe, to die and live and die again for everything else to go on as it should.

But oh, my love, I want to be much, much more.

I don’t want to be lost no longer. 

When you first met me, you were, what, 10 years younger than when I first met you? Did that mean I also am 10 years older? So, between us, there was a whole 20 years age gap now? I don’t know whether inverted birthdays count as birthdays or not, but here we were.

I was in some deep complicated shit that I didn’t think I could get out of alone. It involved a scientific problem which I will not be trained for, and the situation clearly demanded someone both as creative and intelligent as you. That was when I knew that this was it. This was the fate knocking, demanding that I better open the door, _or else_. There’s no more avoiding it.

I followed you for a while, trying to learn about you, although I guess it’s actually me gathering the nerve. You were in your early twenties, with life involving nothing much but quick sandwich lunches and heavy textbooks from one or another London library. You had your glasses on (I didn’t know you are short-sighted), and your bang fell into your eyes all the time. Generally, you look downright like a goddamn nerd.

Truly? You were so beautiful, and I realized then how much I have missed you.

Even as a scholarship student, you were still a nobody, so I couldn’t bother coming up with a plan to initiate contact. Years of training and field experiences also suggest that, sometimes, it is best to just take it easy, make it look like an accident. I ended up bumping into you and scattering your books on the floor like a beginning of some rom-com movie, because it’s amusing to see you so agitated and a bit shy. You are so different, yet so familiar. Who would have imagined that the charming, talented, let’s-crash-a-plane-into-a-freaking-building Neil was such an introvert guy? That thought sent me reeling for a moment.

I was lost in the sudden urge to want to have you crammed everything there is to know about you into a one, long summarization that could be achieved within that short timespan where I helped gathering your textbooks from the ground. I wanted to know _everything_. That is, until you looked me in the eyes, and I saw no sign of recognition anywhere in that pair of familiar teal eyes.

Nothing at all, like a total stranger.

Well, I _was_ a total stranger.

To be honest, I didn’t expect that to hurt. I don’t remember my first meeting with you in Bombay to be hurtful, only tiring and confusing. Does this mean it also will hurt this much for you?

As my brain short-circuited like a total untrained amateur, you were starting to apologize and walk away. My mouth stumbled out, _no, it was me who should be sorry, I was a bit lost_. I stopped my mouth before it continues to the ‘I was lost, but now I was found’ bit. My rational part warned: Stop, don’t go too fast, or you’ll get to the truth too soon.

Ignorance is an ammunition, isn’t it?

It is, of course it is. This one specifically is an ammunition that shoot him in the fucking face, remember, you idiot?

Perhaps holding half the things I wanted to say back in my throat, in my heart, was what our relationship was going to be like from now on, at least for a while. I must learn to get used to that.

You laughed nervously, probably thinking that I was trying to have an awkward flirt with someone I just caused a mild inconvenience. Thanks for noticing, I _was_ flirting with you! Now, would you shut up and kiss me because I’ve been waiting and _wanting_ for so long? Anyway, I laughed back and continued with my plan, _hey, you studying physics? I happen to have some problems in my research, would you mind a chat at the bar, drinks on me?_

You hesitated, which was completely understandable since I was being rather suspicious. Then, you agreed, because obviously you would want to talk about quantum mechanics and thermodynamics with anyone at all, even if it’s a stranger you bump into on the street.

At the bar, I ordered you a vodka tonic, because that’s how our lives work. You were a bit startled but decided not to say anything. Then, we got right into business. I started explaining the problem, trying to keep the smoothness I have harvested all these years of being a professional spy, and failing miserably. Even the complex threat from Andre Sator on that yacht in Italy a lifetime ago won’t make me this nervous. To be fair, I haven’t had any real conversation that didn’t involving using the people I talk to for so many years, and I became a bit rusty in that regard. Okay, I _was_ using you, but also not really. You know what I mean. Or at least you will.

I explained things awkwardly, not wanting to cram into you more information than you can contain, until suddenly you chimed in with a brilliant insight, and we stumbled into that familiar rhythm as if we have known each other for years. Pretty ironic, I thought, as a withered corner of my heart quietly bloomed back to life; It may or may not be the part that people usually call hope. I personally wouldn’t want to hope, except deep down I know that this was going to happen. _We_ were meant to happen either way.

And you did solve it. Somehow, you solved my problem, in a noisy London pub, with nothing but shouted conversations, a pen, a napkin, and a glass of vodka tonic.

You were as smart as I remember you to be, maybe even more so (it is true then that people get more stupid as they grow older, or is it just my bad influence having been transmitted over to you?). It was unsurprising you would not only understand everything I explain instantly, but also able to provide the answers I needed at the moment with a step-by-step demonstration.

How come it’s you that saves me every single damn time?

Even when you had no idea who I am, you still managed to save me.

Your eyes lighted up at the idea of a reversed-entropy object though, and that’s new. It was a look of somebody who experienced something new that they really liked for the first time, and it was young, and endless, and beautiful. Not gonna lie, it was nice to be the one witnessing the rare sight of realization that there is a new possibility into the mysterious knowledge of the universe. It feels nice every time I do this, but it is especially fresh on your face, the young physicist who had so much to discover ahead of him.

Yes, I could work with this. I could get you to know me again, to learn our language again, so you can teach me it again. Running in circles is probably what we do best anyway.

‘I don’t reckon you walk around asking this to every grad physics student you bump into, right?’ you ask, suddenly too self-conscious, or maybe starting to catch on how weird the tide of conversation has turned.

_No, just you,_ I said.

You were quiet for some time, staring at the now-empty glass, then whispered, barely audible over the tumult noises of the bar, ‘how do you know it has to be me?’

That simple question broke me like a brick, splitting me in half, with the truth inside threatening to pour out. The truth that generally consists of something like: _you are going to save me. You have saved me once just now, and you are going to save me again, and again, and again. You are going to save my at least thrice when I don’t realize, and much, much more when_ you _don’t realize. It has always been you. It will always be you. Only you._

Emotions overcame me briefly, so I quickly swallowed it, drawing out instead the old façade of a spy charm, leaned closer, and whispered back with a smirk: _spoilers_.

You stared some more, clearly thinking, as if you notice the dark clouds gathering in a distance. I held my breath, for a second hoping that you would choose to refuse and walk away, breaking my heart in a process yet saving yourself _for once_ from this mess of a life you are going to share with me. You in the future are definitely going to laugh at me for having such a rebelling thought, even after all these years of experiencing firsthand that there isn’t such a thing as free will. This once though, in this one time I really wanted to believe.

You agreed anyway.

That’s a reminder right in the gut that wishing can never change things, and what’s happened happened, and we both were, are, and will be nothing but the guardians of this world, saving it from what could have been. It is determined and was never truly my, your, or anyone’s decision in the first place.

Your blood was, is, will always be on my hands. There’s no way to wash it off.

My only way to atone for it is probably to love you enough that the sacrifice is worth it.

We shook hands, and just like that, the ending began.


End file.
